Friday 15^th June

Here it is wintry and dark.  I love the early morning crisp clean air and my walk down into the city.  Usually I manage to escape at lunchtime to see what else the day has brought, but occasionally we are immured in internal rooms for the whole day.  This is not so much fun… Last week we were in quite a small windowless room with at least eight people and a lot of fairly high-pitched intense debate about this or that urgent industrial issue.  By three o’clock I was fading fast… I excused myself for a few minutes and when I came back into the room I was met by a whoosh of hot, stuffy air – how were any of us awake at all??

Meanwhile in Darwin, NT…

Pete just rang.  His breakfast, of bacon and eggs, was about to arrive, and yesterday he bought new bathers so he could go swimming.  I asked him to make SURE there were no crocodiles lurking in the pool…there was an enormous one on the TV news last night, with quite a few fluffy pet pups in its big fat tummy.  He says the caravan park where they are staying is just splendid.  There is a beautiful pool, palm trees, a bar, a restaurant.  John, Andrew and Pete are being picked up by ex-Tasmanian Tom Mulcahy after their breakfast, and they are going to an aviation museum and a gallery.  Tomorrow they are going to Lorne Hill, then on to Longreach.  Andrew is racing somewhere along the line (in a racing car…not in the plane!)  It all sounds like funfunfun!

Last night they were entertained by what Pete described as “a big, fat bastard, a real scream,” who did various cheesy impersonations – Elvis, Bee Gees, Roy Orbison, complete with wigs.  Lots of audience participation, with everyone hanging back initially but then getting into the spirit of things and really letting fly.  I asked if Our Pete, Andrew and John were amongst the uninhibited participants and – you may be surprised – they weren’t.  But…Pete did receive a big fat kiss on the top of his head from the big fat singing bastard, all kitted out as Frankenfurter and singing “I’m a sweet transvestite transsexual Transylvanian.”

NYC #8?  I have lost count…but I am enjoying these Pauline & Barbara In New York stories v much, hope you are too

Yesterday was incredible.  All I can say was that you had to be there.  We had travelled (via subway - not something I want to repeat) uptown to experience the hallowed halls of High End shopping, ie Bloomingdale's (son or father of David Jones - not sure which one was born first) and then Saks, which is so far up in the stratosphere that it made Bloomingdale's look Low End.  More of that later.

I had vaguely noticed that the second Sunday in June was National Puerto Rican Day and that there would be a parade somewhere in the city.  Well, we were in the midst of it.  It lasted for about five very noisy hours.  The internet tells me that 80,000 people march and another two million line the streets.  Another site tells me that three million participate.  We were two of those.  From what we could see, probably the only non-Latino spectators (apart from the many thousands of New York's finest who were out in force at every intersection).  Damn my camera for being out of battery because it was an amazing spectacle.  It takes place along 5th Avenue which is closed from 44th Street to 86th Street, which is a very long way.  Saks is on Fifth Avenue and it required an enormous amount of determination pushing through the huge crowds and the heat to make it there, but we did.

(Please excuse any typos because this computer, one of the very few good things about this apartment, has developed a strange pink striped screen making it almost impossible to read what I have written, plus the space bar sticks.  And, yes, I have tried rebooting).

The internet tells me that there is some controversy because notorious gangs now participate in the parade and a few years ago groups of young men marauded through Central Park and there were over seventy attacks on women in the park.  To us it seemed a very happy occasion with millions of Puerto Rican families caught up in national pride and fervour.  There were many dance troupes parading, comprising men, women and children of all shapes and sizes and there was much salsa dancing down the streets.  There were thousands of vehicles and floats and many bands and bedecked Metro buses.  These were the ATU (Amalgamated Transport Union) contingent and they got the biggest cheer, including from me.  I found myself waving and shouting "Union.  Union", but maybe I shouldn't have because these were the very same bus drivers who have been shouting at Barbara.
A word about New York's finest - a sorrier looking bunch I have seldom seen.  They are always slouching and leaning against walls (perhaps from the weight of the hardware they carry around), they almost all seem very overweight and unfit and universally bored.  None seem to do anything except stand on corners and talk to each other or sit and drink coffee.  We saw a group in a coffee bar on a side street during the parade, and one was (almost) asleep at the table.  They drive the tinniest looking cars imaginable and they are absolutely not like on the television.  Barbara has taken a lot of photos of these sad and sorry specimens.  They have to be seen to be believed.  On the other hand, menacingly, at various points around New York, members of the armed SWAT team (or whatever they are called) pop up and just stand there maintaining a very threatening presence.  Machine guns, dogs, vans with blackened windows.  They stand there, looking up and down the street, then, after a while, they get into the van and drive away in order to pop up again in another street somewhere else in New York.

After the parade Fifth Avenue was awash with filth, I have never seen such piles of rubbish, but I guess that's what two (or three) million people cause when they are in party mood.  Suddenly, a huge clean-up operation swung into action, fleets of street sweeping vehicles appeared and an army of orange-coated men with brooms and bags and the like.  When we went home a couple of hours later it was as though the parade had never happened.  I keep being gobsmacked by the scale of things in this city and the size and efficiency of the clean up operation was another such event.

Back to Saks.  Whereas I might, at a pinch, have been able to afford one or two small purchases in Bloomingdale's, I could never afford anything in Saks.  It is hard to believe that this great big store with its many employees actually has paying customers.  The price of everything is astronomical.  Even little coin purses and key rings are hundreds and hundreds of dollars.  And, oh, the handbags!  None were less than four figures.  I spent a lot of time in the handbag and shoe departments and did manage to take some photos of the wonders on my iphone, although, of course, Barbara got sprung doing the exact same thing and so was in trouble again in a polite Saks sort of a way.

I would have thought that the adage "the customer is always right" would apply double somewhere where the clientele would all have to be multi-millionaires, but not so, I overheard the following conversation in the children's wear department:

Salesperson: No Madam, we absolutely cannot allow you to return these garments.  They have been worn and washed and ironed.

Madam: They absolutely have not.  That's not the way my maid irons. And what about the skirt?

Salesperson: We can't take that back either, but our seamstresses are upstairs rehemming it now.

As always when I travel, my spirit is willing but my feet are not.  I have a very sore left foot which feels very much like a return of my old, familiar stress fracture.  The poor thing has had to carry my not insubstantial weight along so many miles and miles of New York pavements that it seems to have given up the ghost.  That won't stop me though.  It's only pain and this is New York!